


Knives All About

by anomalation



Series: Sharp Edges [2]
Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Emotional Baggage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalation/pseuds/anomalation
Summary: Sometimes Meg feels like she's the only one who doesn't know what's going on with Ransom. Mostly, she tries not to think about it. Mostly.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Series: Sharp Edges [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577185
Comments: 64
Kudos: 935





	Knives All About

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays all. Your lovely comments fueled me.

Meg was the one who got them going, in the end. It was stupid; all of Ransom’s stuff was in his old house, totally untouched, and it had stayed there for months after he got out. All his clothes were in there, and instead of getting them, he was wearing jeans from fucking Kohl’s that Linda had gotten him as a sort of punishment. Marta was too nervous to bring the house up, and Ransom was clearly never gonna do it. Meg wasn’t used to seeing her cousin feel beholden to someone, but it looked natural when the person he owed was Marta. Because, the thing was, he totally adored Marta. Meg had never seen that look on his face either, but she knew it when she saw it. Also, like recognized like. Marta made it into both their hearts.

Anyways, since neither of them would bring it up, Meg did it. They were all out on the balcony around a fire, wrapped up in blankets, the dogs snoring a bit on the pavement. Ransom liked being outside, even now that it was getting cold.

“Hey,” Meg said, like she just thought of it. “Y’know what we should do?”

“What?” Marta asked obligingly. She was sitting next to Ransom, not quite leaning on him. The space between them was so charged, even Meg could feel it.

“We should go get your clothes and stuff,” Meg said to Ransom in particular. He met her eyes, ostensibly listening. But Ransom had always kept himself a step away from her, and today wasn’t any different. “It’s not even an hour away, let’s go get it.”

“You don’t like my new clothes,” Ransom surmised.

“I don’t,” Meg agreed, for expediency’s sake. “Let’s go.”

Marta looked at her. “I’m not busy,” she finally said.

Ransom turned his head to Marta. “You’re not?” he asked, faux-serious.

“No,” she answered. Marta thought she heard a challenge.

“Well then,” Ransom said.

“I’ll drive,” Meg said, getting to her feet.

Marta and Ransom followed her lead. Meg had to avoid looking at them too closely. It was clear in every movement they made that Ransom revolved around Marta, and for some reason that made Meg’s heart ache.

In the car, Marta sat up front. Ransom was quiet in the back seat. Meg glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him with his hand over his mouth, looking out the window. The car was quiet. Meg hadn’t really known what family meant, marrow-deep _meant_ , until she knew Marta. Unconditional love, or maybe love that looked at the conditions and decided to be irrational anyways. Meg had fucked up, bad, and Marta had decided she was worth it anyways. It was weird to think she might still not have that with Ransom, her actual cousin. He probably didn’t like her. She didn’t really have anything to offer him.

They pulled in the driveway and Ransom took a deep breath. “You haven’t been back here?” Meg asked, sort of generally.

Marta shook her head.

“Trespassing would break my parole,” Ransom said solemnly.

Through the windshield and a window, Meg caught a glimpse of Marta smiling, a bright flash that she stifled but couldn’t hold back altogether. And again, Meg felt the pang of worry, of being left behind. Once, her mom had accidentally forgotten her at a World Market and hadn’t been back for three hours. Meg was kind of happy she was driving today.

“Do we have keys?” Marta said as they approached the front door.

Ransom held them up. “Granddad probably had a copy, if you look,” he said as he unlocked the door. “Probably a good idea to have the keys to your own property.”

Marta gave him a look, and Ransom tilted his head with a hint of a smile before holding the door open. “Welcome,” he said teasingly, and ushered them both in ahead of him.

There was no dust. A lot of flat surfaces and no dust. Marta and Meg paused a few steps in, and Ransom passed them to stroll through the open concept first floor. “I’m gonna hazard a guess and say you never cancelled the maid,” he said. “Same service that comes by the house bi-weekly.”

“I didn’t know they also…” Marta said faintly, and she followed Ransom several steps behind.

Ransom turned back and gave her the speculative kind of look that usually meant his target was about to be eviscerated. Meg knew it well; she was often the target. The outcast in a family of apathetic republicans. He looked at Marta like that, and said, “You’ve _got_ to stop thinking like the help.”

“I won’t,” Marta said without flinching. “That’s what I’ve got you for, Hugh.”

Ransom snapped at her. “Don’t call me that.” And Meg expected them to wind each other up further, to start fighting. She knew the rhythm of an argument well enough. But Ransom and Marta never did what she expected. After that snap, Marta looked at Ransom expectantly, and Ransom let himself show a little smile. “Bedroom’s in here.” And that was it. They didn’t argue. Actually, they didn’t even seem mad at each other either. Meg didn’t get it at all.

She followed the two of them through the extremely minimal rooms. The house was so modern it was unfriendly; Ransom bought this house to piss Linda off, if the family stories were to be believed, and Meg could see how it worked.

The master bedroom was basically half the upper floor. A walk-in closet took up like, a lot of space, and that’s where Ransom brought them. “I guess I should ask you,” he said, turning around to face the two of them. Really, though, he was only talking to Marta. “Am I… allowed?” he asked her, playfully but also apparently serious.

“What do you mean?”

“This is all technically yours,” he pointed out, and Meg was surprised to find he actually had a point.

“You think I’d bring you here just to tell you you can’t have these things?” Marta sounded incredulous.

Ransom glanced at Meg, and for once they were on the same page. “That’s what a Thrombey would do,” he said, and added quickly, “So as always, I’m glad you’re not one of us.”

“Where are your bags?” Marta asked.

Meg helped. She knew what he’d want to keep, what he liked wearing. Ransom had a set of leather luggage that came in handy. They were filling the duffle with shirts and sweaters when Marta said, “This is stupid.”

Meg opened her mouth; Ransom got there first. “No big, babe, we can leave this one behind,” he said, with the kind of shit-eating grin that meant he knew that was not the real answer to whatever she meant.

“Leave it all behind,” Marta said. “Leave it all here.”

So she’d changed her mind. Meg couldn’t blame her, she decided right away. She’d take Marta’s side if it came to that. Ransom straightened up and looked at Marta, a sharp kind of look. “You can’t mean that.”

“She can mean whatever she wants,” Meg began.

Marta put her hand on Meg’s arm. “I can,” she answered Ransom, “and you need to stop telling me what to do.”

Ransom looked at Marta with so much intensity in his gaze that Meg could hardly stand to witness it. “Okay,” he said. “But let’s be clear about what you’re actually saying. This isn’t a fucking shirt, you’re saying you’re giving me this house back. Unless I’m horribly mistaken.”

He was not. Marta didn’t say anything - that was the tip off. She crossed her arms and just stared at him, and Meg knew she was missing something. There was communication happening between them, and she was left out.

“Keep it in your name at least,” Ransom said. “So you can change your mind.”

“You’ll move back here, though?” Marta asked.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to, boss,” he said reluctantly, tense. Meg knew he was pissed, but Marta didn’t seem to. She nodded, satisfied, and started unpacking what they’d just packed.

“So hold on,” Meg said. “What… what are you doing, you’re just…” Marta was giving him a house. Sort of hysterically, Meg thought if she knew houses were an option she would’ve had a bigger Christmas list.

Marta gave her a look, the pitying kind of look that Meg was scared of. The look from that prison infirmary that first told Meg Marta was someone she didn’t entirely know. “It’s just sitting here,” Marta said.

“Because _you_ didn’t sell it,” Meg said.

Ransom liked that. He smiled, raised his eyebrows at Marta. “Well,” he said. “She’s got a point.”

Sometimes Meg couldn’t tell if Marta felt more like a sister or a mom. The look right now was definitely a mom look. “I didn’t,” Marta agreed. “It’s mine. And Ransom…”

“Is also yours?” he suggested with the warmest smirk.

Marta glared in his direction but avoided looking directly at him, which Meg noted with interest. “Ransom is going crazy living with his mother again,” Marta began.

“Not your concern,” Ransom interjected.

She continued, uninterrupted. “And the thought of going through his things and trying to sell them is… I can’t do that.”

“Lame,” Ransom sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Meg thought she could see a smile on his face.

“And the only reason the house wasn’t in your name to begin with was so Harlan could keep his grasp on you,” Marta finished firmly, and this time Ransom didn’t have anything to say. “His control. So really, I’m just righting wrongs.”

Meg wasn’t sure that was the truth. She looked at Ransom, and he didn’t seem to know either. He was fidgeting with the sleeve of a button-up, hanging in the closet next to him.

“Plus,” Marta said after a second, “it’ll make keeping curfew easier. Changing your home base to here.”

“Oh there’s the angle. Keeping me closer, at your beck and call,” Ransom said, and paced over to the closet door. Meg wondered if he didn’t like being behind Marta, having her not looking at him. “You want me to drop everything when you call?” he continued, needling at Marta.

She didn’t react. She just looked past Meg at Ransom, and after a solid silence, she said, “I’m going to call Alan and have it done.”

Meg turned in time to catch Ransom’s shrug. “Your call,” he said. But that was the very beginning of the answer. Marta’s tense answering nod told Meg she knew that.

Ransom wandered out, and Marta let out a deep breath. Her shoulders fell a little bit. “This is exhausting,” she said.

“If he’s not grateful, you don’t have to force him to be,” Meg said, trying to be helpful. “You don’t have to bend over backwards to help people who don’t appreciate you.”

“He appreciates me,” Marta sighed. “When he feels safe to.”

That was confusing. All of this was confusing. Meg ran a hand through her hair. “Okay,” she said. “Is this why you didn’t want to talk about it? Did you know he’d be like this?”

“I didn’t know,” Marta said. “But… if your mother gave you something, how would you react?”

“Why would she be giving it to me?”

“Out of the goodness of her heart,” Marta answered, with the half of a smile that meant she knew how unlikely that was. “But that’s exactly my point. He’s stuck on the why.”

That clicked. “Of why you’re giving him this house,” Marta said.

“Yes,” Marta said.

“Okay, but… why?” Marta asked, and that made Marta smile. She really liked making Marta smile. Marta’s dark eyes sparkled so brightly that Meg could honestly see why Ransom was in love with her. Anyone would be.

“Because I want him to be happy,” Marta confided quietly. “And none of you are happy with your parents. It’s a fact.”

It _was_ a fact. “Yeah, but that’s not the whole truth,” Meg said.

“No,” Marta said. “It’s not. I’m gonna go find him.”

Meg could tell when she was being politely brushed off by now. She made herself scarce, sat on the steps on her phone while the two of them talked in his bedroom. She listened in. It was her right. Marta never said anything bad about her, so. That was basically an invitation.

“This is stupid,” Ransom said.

“Get it out of your system,” Marta told him.

“What?”

“The insults, the snappy remarks. Get it out. I’d like to have a real conversation, please, so. Get it over with.” No one spoke to Ransom like that. Meg was still a little shocked whenever Marta pulled it off.

“It _is_ stupid. For someone so smart, you do a hell of a lot of dumbass things,” Ransom said crossly, but without most of his usual heat.

“Doing something that’s not strictly in my best interests does not make it stupid,” Marta said. “Some would call it noble.”

“Do-gooding idiots don’t make it into my focus group.”

It sounded a lot like Marta hit him, though Ransom just laughed. “Wow, whatever happened to ‘do no harm’?” he demanded. “Right out the window, huh?”

“Strictly speaking, I did not take an oath.”

“Well, now you tell me.” When Ransom spoke again, it was a lot quieter. Marta couldn’t totally hear it, but it sounded a lot like he said, “Okay. I’m done.”

“Good. So would you really like to stay here?”

“Oh my god, you seriously need to ask that?”

“Sorry, it’s hard for me to tell when you’re being sarcastic because you don’t want to tell me you mean it or when it’s the opposite.”

Meg would’ve considered that a mistake if she was the one in the argument. Telling someone they’ve got any amount of upper hand on you just gives them the ability to take advantage of it. But that didn’t seem to be how the two of them worked. After Marta said that, Ransom was quiet for a while. “Alright,” he finally said. “I would love to come back here. More than… it’s more than I deserve, for sure.”

“Stop.” Marta’s eye roll was in her voice.

“Oh, so now I should stop telling the truth.”

“You have a very flexible definition of truth,” she said, and her voice was getting nearer. She and Ransom came out then, back to Meg, and Marta smiled at her. “Let’s go,” she said. “Mama will want our help with dinner.”

Meg thought about a lot of things on the drive back. About how Ransom held the door for Marta - and Meg as an afterthought - and how he was thinking about what he deserved and finding himself wanting. Meg knew sort of abstractly that she should’ve spent more time on that, on recognizing she didn’t deserve Marta’s help with college, or forgiveness, or love. But it didn’t really bother her. Not really. But now Ransom had her thinking that maybe the subject deserved a little more thought.

Even with more thought, though, Meg couldn’t make it matter as much to her as she heard it matter to Ransom. And that bothered her.

Ransom had been folded into the family traditions like Jacob and Meg had been. It was a Saturday, so Alice was home too. Not Jacob, he was enjoying autonomy at college - those were his words, verbatim - so the five of them made dinner together tonight. And somehow, Ransom fit in just fine.

“I don’t care,” Alice said loudly over him. She was cutting scallions but had stopped to gesture at him with a knife. Meg hated when she got like that; Ransom didn’t seem concerned. “I don’t care about your dumbass Harvard Business School degree, you’re wrong and people make money selling Avon.”

“Less than a half of a percent of people,” Ransom countered. He was getting out glasses, filling them with water. “Not even that. You think they’ve given out thousands of cars?”

“That’s Mary Kay,” Marta’s mom said mildly, stirring the big pot on the stove.

“Whatever. They’re all scams.”

“There’s a whole podcast about it,” Meg agreed.

“All makeup selling-” Marta began incredulously.

Ransom scrunched up his face at her. “No. Not that. All the… having a party at your house and selling to your friends and recruiting them to sell - all of that bullshit is one hundred percent the sign of a scam. You only make money if you’ve got a ton of acquaintances with money and a hell of a lot of charisma. So… you’d probably do okay.” That last bit was directed at Alice.

“That’s what I’ve been _saying_ ,” Alice insisted. “It can’t be that much of a scam if I’d make money.”

“Oh my God,” Ransom sighed, and picked up three of the glasses. He kept talking on his way to the dining room. “Those two things are completely unrelated. You could make money in fucking… door-to-door vacuum sales.”

“It was chocolate, in high school, and I raised the most money in my class,” Alice shouted after him. She did a lot of yelling, it was kind of annoying but also impressive. Ransom didn’t seem to mind being yelled at by Alice, though. He came back in smiling, looking at Marta.

“Google it,” Ransom said. “I forget what it’s called, it’s some kind of acronym.”

“Oh, I’ll get right on googling that,” Alice said sarcastically.

“Great, thanks.”

The only person that could match Ransom, pound for pound, in an argument was Alice. Marta could stop him, but she argued in a different sort of way. Alice met him on his own terms, and seemed to like it. Meg was almost jealous. But she didn’t want to fight with Ransom, she wanted him to just act like a person for once.

He was better at that too, now. With Marta’s mom he could be a person. With Marta, Meg suspected, because she had a feeling the way they were with other people around was no indication of how they were alone. And that seemed to mean he COULD be nice, he just wouldn’t. Meg was trying to be understanding about it, considering that he was in jail until a few months ago. She was trying.

Curfew meant Ransom had to leave soon after dinner. Marta was very strict with him about curfew, she didn’t let him push it. Meg could see that she hated it, though. So when they were on the porch, all saying goodbye, Meg decided to say something. “We could probably get him off probation,” she suggested during a lull in the conversation.

“Don’t you dare,” Ransom said.

Marta shook her head, agreeing with him. “No,” she said.

“So you’re just making yourself miserable,” Meg said.

Marta was surprised; she frowned at Meg. “I’m not,” she said.

“Not miserable or not doing it to yourself?” Ransom asked, and Marta frowned at him.

“Neither,” she said, and then addressed Meg. “Not getting him preferential treatment is not… it’s not like I’m holding back.”

“Aren’t you?” Meg asked.

Ransom looked at her, and for once Meg thought he might’ve actually noticed her. Like, for real. “She’s not,” he said. “Can doesn’t mean should.”

“Can means can, though,” Meg said, and maintained eye contact.

“Hold on,” Marta cut in, crossing her arms. “I’m confused. Are you upset? Do you think that’s something we should do?” She was next to Ransom, comfortable there, and Meg felt a little ganged up on.

“No,” Meg admitted. “No, I’m not upset, he tried to kill you so. I’m not losing any sleep over what the justice system decided was fair this time. But I don’t like seeing you upset, this is making you… sad, and. I thought the whole point was that we don’t hurt you anymore.”

Marta tipped her head to one side, looked at Meg closely for several moments. Her face was softer, and Meg felt warmer. “You don’t,” Marta said. “You haven’t. Neither of you.” And she looked up at Ransom then, too, to include him in that.

“Not for lack of trying,” Ransom said, half-heartedly, and then Meg saw him swallow hard. Marta must’ve seen it too, because she closed the distance between them and kissed him on the cheek. And Ransom froze.

“Sometimes we do things that make us unhappy,” Marta said quietly. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ransom sighed, and put his arm around her, over her shoulders. “Aesop over here.”

This was a shocking new development. Only - not really. This was what Meg suspected for a while, after the trip to the house today and the way there were practically visible sparks every time they accidentally touched. And Meg found herself smiling. Marta wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’d better get a prenup,” Meg said to Marta.

“Who says we’re getting married?” Marta said, her face going pink.

Ransom answered too, overlapping the end of Marta’s. “From the same lawyer Mom used. Y’know. If we get that far,” he added, towards Marta.

“That’s a big if,” Marta snapped back, and shrugged his arm off. “I’ll see you later,” she added, and went back inside.

Ransom put his hands in his coat pockets and huffed out a deep breath. “You want to bribe a judge for me?” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

“No,” Meg said. “But I thought she might.”

“Ouch,” Ransom said, and that was all he said for a second. “You’re really hot and cold.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Meg said, feeling abruptly defensive.

“First you’re telling her to get me out, then you’re saying I tried to kill her.”

“You did.”

“You think I need to be reminded?” he said, with bare civility, and Meg remembered that sometimes she was frightened of him. Moreso now that he was a felon, probably.

“Why do you care how I feel, anyways?” Meg said, crossing her arms. There was a slight chill in the air, and she’d just put on a cardigan to see him off. “Now that you’re out and you can see her whenever you want.”

This surprised him; she could tell by the seconds it took him to gather his thoughts. “Hold on,” he said slowly. “I thought…”

“It’s okay,” Meg said before he could continue. “I mean, I figured… that’s what family does.”

“What, uses each other?” It sounded like that offended him, somehow. “No.”

“No?” Meg repeated incredulously.

“Not… anymore,” Ransom said grudgingly. His next words were more flippant, much more like normal. “Unless that’s how you’d like to do things. ‘Cause that’d be fine.”

“So it’s my fault,” Meg said, her voice suddenly going thick, and she hated it. She looked away and willed herself not to cry. There wasn’t any reason to, and it wasn’t going to make him like her any better.

“What?”

“It’s fine.”

“When did I say it was your fault?”

“You didn’t, I must’ve misunderstood.”

Ransom was quiet for a second again. “You don’t have to play dead,” he finally said. “I’m not Joni.”

“You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know some,” he said. “Remember Thanksgiving after she started Flim?”

“Flam.” And yes, she did. Ransom and Mom had gotten into an argument that lasted from the appetizers to the coffee after dinner. They only stopped because Harlan told them to. Maybe he knew a little bit. “She was mad for weeks.”

“I tend to have that effect on people.”

That was true, and it dried up her tears a bit. She sniffed them back. “You could say that again.”

“Watch it, you might hurt my feelings,” he said, and she let herself think that he might be actually serious. Marta took him seriously, and he hadn’t destroyed her. Maybe… maybe.

Meg wiped her nose, sniffed hard again. “It must be,” she said. “My fault. Since you like Marta.”

“Two things wrong with that. First of all, the devil would love Marta. She could win him over. No question.” He paused, like she was supposed to laugh. “Second.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Meg said when the silence was starting to hurt and she was starting to think there was no second point to be made. He loved Marta because she was special. Meg wasn’t. “You should get going.”

“Okay, but first I’ve gotta say. You’re a little nuts, and probably a communist, but you’re the only member of the family I’m interested in talking to, you hear me?”

Meg didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to take that, how to take his casual tone. And Ransom seemed to think her silence meant he should say more.

“You were always so easy to piss off,” he said. “And you never tried to… you never hit back. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept going, once I figured that out, but. I liked it. Didn’t think about… how you’d feel.” He kept pausing, and then continuing when she didn’t fill the space. “It’s not your fault, though. Nothing is. We’re… we’re good. Okay?”

“We’re good,” she repeated.

“Yeah. In my books. You’re like the little sister I never thought I wanted.”

That sounded like an insult again, but less than before. Meg took a deep breath. “I’m not a communist, I’m a democratic socialist,” she said, and risked a glance at him.

Ransom was having a great time rolling his eyes. “No objection to the nuts thing?” he asked her, with a curious glance of his own.

“Besides the whole pot and kettle argument?” she said, and her heart soared when he smirked. “Not really.”

“Well, if it’s just that,” Ransom said solemnly. And then he totally surprised her by giving her a one-armed hug, just like he’d done for Marta. Her head barely came up to his shoulder, it really registered. But Meg felt less scared of him than ever. “Love you, kiddo,” he said, and before she could react he finally left, taking the porch stairs lightly and heading out to his car. He was opening the door before she managed to answer.

“Drive safe,” she called. It seemed lame, but also like the kind of thing you said to people you cared about. She was out of practice.

“You bet,” Ransom said with bright sarcasm. But this time, Meg waited, watched him go. She caught his parting smile out the window, and she thought about what she’d overheard Marta say to him earlier. _Get it out of your system._

When Meg was back inside, Marta checked on her. “Everything alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Meg said. “So since when are you and him a thing like that?” That was the right thing to say; Marta blushed and answered. And Meg managed to actually believe they weren’t going to leave her behind for the whole conversation.


End file.
